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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: autism

  • Chemical X | A Poem About Creativity, Neurodivergent Thinking, and the Associative Mind

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    People often ask what inspires my writing, or how my mind moves from one idea to another so quickly.

    The honest answer is that I don’t think in straight lines.

    I think in association, in rhythm, in collision. One idea reminds me of another, not because they are logically connected, but because they feel connected in the moment they appear.

    This poem is built from that process.

    It began with something simple—the familiar phrase “sugar, spice, and everything nice.” But as I wrote, my mind immediately followed the same pattern it always does: connection, exaggeration, humor, memory, and cultural reference all colliding at once. What starts as something familiar quickly becomes something unpredictable.

    The title, Chemical X, comes from that idea.

    In The Powerpuff Girls, Chemical X is the unknown element that transforms something ordinary into something entirely different. For me, that “unknown element” is the way my mind blends thoughts, images, and meanings together in real time.

    This poem is not meant to be linear. It is meant to mirror the way my thoughts actually arrive: rapid, associative, sometimes chaotic, but always connected by feeling and intuition rather than structure.

    If it feels like a mix of humor, storytelling, sports commentary, and surreal imagery all at once—that’s intentional. That is the point.

    This is what happens when everything gets mixed together.

    This is Chemical X.

    — Rowan Evans

    A notebook and pen burst into colorful images of comics, sports, music, stars, and cartoons, symbolizing an imaginative mind making rapid connections.
    Some minds move in straight lines. Mine mixes everything together—and somehow, it all makes sense.

    Chemical X
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    They say “penny for your thoughts,”
    but it takes—two cents to talk.
    Go for a walk, a mile long, in my shoes—
    use my eyes, see the world through my view.

    I’ll etch it across the page,
    world view and all—
    because I’m the on the ball
    point pen, in an ink sprint.
    Usain Bolt, the way my mind went.

    To understand the rhythm,
    you’ve got to understand the mechanism.
    You’ve got to understand the mind
    behind the rhyme—

    my thoughts are rapid fire.

    Thirty round magazine,
    three-round burst—
    that’s the way my mind works.

    I can jump from cartoons
    to comic books,
    music to sports—

    sugar, spice,
    and everything nice.

    A round of applause, Johnny—
    Bravo, you completed the Quest.
    You gained experience and leveled up.
    Still, it wasn’t enough—

    because I’m a two-way threat—
    like my name is Shohei.

    Bitch, I’m the Babe.

    At four years old,
    I was almost tossed
    out of the game.

    I was a menace—
    call me, Dennis.

    Two Hubbles
    strapped to my face,
    look up—see space.

    Fingers curled
    gripping the chain link—
    a bad call, a blind ump,
    a small child
    blind as I was,
    offering their eyes up
    like I was—

    trying to help?
    Maybe.

    Trying to insult?

    Of course…

    it’s sports…

    I was Dexter
    in the lab again,
    pen to pad again,
    and I gave
    all I had to give—

    Victor Frankenstein
    is at it again,
    patchwork metaphors
    and images galore—

    villagers are going
    to be afraid for sure.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Crossing the Sea (No Metaphor Left Behind)]
    A deeply personal poem about relocation, longing, and the realization that some truths naturally arrive through metaphor—even when we try to leave it behind.

    [Only Waiting (No Metaphor Left Behind)]
    The second poem in the No Metaphor Left Behind series, exploring the quiet ache of growing up in a place that never truly felt like home—and finally saying aloud what years of metaphor had been trying to express.

    [Translating What I Feel]
    A poem about the invisible process of turning emotion into imagery, imagery into language, and language into poetry. An intimate reflection on creativity, loneliness, and twenty-three years of learning to translate what the heart feels.

    [Monster Theology]
    What if the monsters under the bed weren’t monsters at all? Monster Theology explores difference, belonging, and the human tendency to fear what we don’t understand through a conversation with the creatures we’ve spent our lives imagining.

    [Frankenstein’s Monster (and I’m the Doctor)]
    Some poems are built to make a point. Others are built to reveal the mechanism. Frankenstein’s Monster (and I’m the Doctor) explores associative thinking, creative chaos, and the strange process of stitching disconnected ideas into something alive.

    If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]

  • Somewhere In-Between: A Non-Binary Reflection on Identity, Isolation, and Defiance

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem is a reflection on identity, expectation, and self-perception. It pokes fun at the rigid “alpha/beta” hierarchies humans obsess over, while also embracing the awkward, complicated truth of being a loner—or a “lone wolf with no wolfly features.” It’s a celebration of existing somewhere in-between: neither fitting the molds others prescribe, nor apologizing for being too observant, too complex, too queer, too alive in your own terms. Humor and honesty are both weapons here, used to dismantle clichés and to claim space for a self that refuses binaries.

    Non-binary fairy standing under an autumn tree, surrounded by falling leaves, half in shadow and half in soft pastel light, representing isolation and self-reflection.
    “Somewhere In-Between” — A reflection on identity, solitude, and the courage to exist unapologetically as oneself.

    Somewhere In-Between (Neither Alpha, Nor Beta)
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Sometimes it feels like
    nobody wants me around.
    That’s okay though—
    I don’t want me around either.

    I’m so off-putting—
    I’m not a people pleaser.
    A lone-wolf,
    with no wolfly features.

    I write too much.
    I don’t say enough.
    Too observant
    for my own good.

    Everybody wants an alpha male—
    Not some beta boy, beta fish,
    Watch him get pissed.
    Headbutting his own reflection.

    Me?
    I carry myself with class.
    Not an alpha, not a beta,
    Somewhere in-between.

    I wrote this—
    And I don’t know
    what it means.

    I write too much.
    I don’t say enough.
    Too observant
    for my own good.

    Like, everyone wants to lock-in.
    Stuck in the binary—
    But me? I’m a non-binary fairy,
    Queer as fuck, like the ones I don’t give.

    And it feels like
    nobody wants me around.
    That’s okay though—
    I understand.

    I’m too confusing.
    Too complex.
    I recognize a pattern,
    I know what comes next.

    Everybody leaves,
    like it’s autumn.
    Gaining distance
    from the trees.

    I write too much.
    I don’t say enough.
    Way too observant
    for my own good.

    If you have made it this far and would like to check out more of my work, you can find it [here] in The Library of Ashes.

  • Polyjamourous: A Love Letter to Music, Culture, and Connection Across Oceans

    Rowan Evans

    The Introduction…

    Sound has always lived differently in me.
    Being autistic means the world sometimes reaches me at full volume —
    too much light, too much noise, too much everything.

    The static hum of a fluorescent bulb,
    the electricity whispering through the walls when everything else falls silent —
    it’s constant, it’s aggravating, and it overwhelms me more often than I’d like to admit.

    But music?
    Music has always been my calm.

    It’s the one constant that never demanded I make sense of myself.
    With every note, I could breathe again.
    Certain songs still hold the fingerprints of who I was the first time I heard them —
    I can feel the exact ache, the pulse, the quiet hope that hummed beneath my skin.
    Music has always been my way back to myself.

    Over the past twenty years, that love has stretched across oceans.
    I fell for Japan’s wistful melancholy,
    for Korea’s raw confessions,
    for China’s grace and discipline,
    and for the Philippines’ warmth and heart.
    I didn’t need to understand every word — I could feel them.
    Emotion translates without permission.

    What began as listening became belonging.
    These cultures gave me soundtracks for my healing,
    and languages that somehow spoke me fluently
    before I ever learned to translate them.

    This poem is my thank-you —
    a devotion to the music and the lands that shaped me.

    — Rowan Evans

    A dreamy illustration of a woman surrounded by glowing lanterns shaped like musical notes, each representing Asian cultures, as she stands in a sea of sound waves with her eyes closed in calm reflection.
    “Music is how I pray — across oceans, across languages, across lives.”

    Polyjamourous
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I am polyjamourous for music,
    polyamorous for culture—
    I love across language,
    love across oceans of distance.

    Japan whispers in my bones,
    Korea hums in my veins,
    China flows through my pulse,
    the Philippines lingers in my breath.
    Each a lantern in the corridors
    of my heart,
    each echo a thread of home
    woven into who I am.

    I am polyjamourous for music,
    polyamorous for culture—
    I love across language,
    love across distance.
    I bow to the lands
    that shaped me,
    even from a thousand miles away,
    even from a thousand lives away.

    And to them, I murmur—
    ありがとう,
    감사합니다,
    谢谢,
    salamat po,
    thank you—

    Each syllable, a soft flame,
    a quiet devotion
    carried across the world,
    across time,
    across the chambers of my soul.

    Soundtrack of My Heart

    The music that shaped me, that carried me through nights of stillness and storms of thought, is more than sound—it is devotion. Here are a few threads of that tapestry, songs that held me, lifted me, and made me feel home during my 20 years of listening to music across oceans:

    The GazettE – “Filth in the Beauty”
    The soundtrack to my 17-year-old chaos—every riff, every scream etched into memory. The GazettE taught me that beauty can thrive in filth. R.I.P. Reita.
    XG – “WOKE UP”
    A reminder of why I fell in love with K-Pop—the raw energy, the pulse, the feeling of waking fully alive in music. Language doesn’t matter; what hits the soul never needs translation. XG’s fire makes me feel every beat, every pulse, alive.
    By2 – “Don’t Go Away”
    I was 19 the first time this song became part of me—each note, each line a mirror for the ache and hope of that age. By2 showed me the power of longing, of holding on and letting go at once. Even now, it hits me right in the chest, a familiar heartbeat across time and distance.
    BINI – “Pantropiko”
    Instant sunshine—bright, unstoppable, impossible not to move to. Pantropiko reminds me that joy can be loud, colorful, unapologetic. Every time it plays, it lifts me, fills the room with warmth, and makes me feel fully alive in the moment.

    Each song is a lantern, each beat a heartbeat, each melody a language of the soul. Listen, feel, and know—my polyjamorous heart beats across these lands, and perhaps yours will, too.